


Stowaway

by Sister of Silence (Orcbait)



Series: The Retirement AU [1]
Category: Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Cthulhu Mythos, F/M, Foreshadowing, Hastur Cycle, Lovecraftian, Mindfuck, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 21:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8816458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orcbait/pseuds/Sister%20of%20Silence
Summary: It is the 31st Millennium and the Great Crusade is drawing near its end. The Emperor of Mankind has passed sovereignity to Roboute Guilliman who, aided by Malcador and Georgiana Stanier, presides over the Imperium of Man. Together with His Empress-consort, most of the Legio Custodes and some of His sons, He prepares to travel to the quiet world of Imperia to spend the rest of His days in relative peace with His family. However, there is one entity who has made his home around these mountains for untold millennia and is not keen on being left behind now.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the quasi-prologue to the Retirement AU.

“Everything is accounted for?” the Emperor of Mankind enquired as He inspected the veritable mountain of cargo crates set out before Him. Each flakboard box was meticulously registered with large, Gothic numerals and content designations. They were stacked high and girded with adamentium cables to reinforced pallets as they awaited transport.

“I have gone over the master-list twice and accounted for every last brick, your Imperial Majesty,” Taitale Kaptara, master craftsman and foreman assured Him as they walked among the maze of cargo crates. Sunlight fell through the glasteel dome of the Hall of Memories and appeared to follow Him as they walked, outlining His regal figure in soft golden light. Kaptara had been in the presence of the Master of Mankind before, but it never ceased to humble and inspire her to be near to one with such command of imagination and invention. 

The Emperor clasped His hands behind His back and frowned into the distance at something only He could see. “It’s imperative not a single piece is forgotten or misplaced. The consequences would be… unpleasant.”

Kaptara bowed her head in understanding. “Such a thing will not happen, your Imperial Majesty. I will make sure of it.”

The Emperor glanced sideways at the tall craftsman, her lean build and distinctly Grecian features reminding Him of the ancient Olympian athletes. “I have all the confidence in your ability, Taitale,” He said and Kaptara felt pride swell in her chest. The Emperor, beloved by all, knew her name.

                                                  O        O       O

Kaptara inspected the cargo crates a third time, to reassure herself everything was in order, as she had promised the Emperor. It took her the rest of the afternoon and a good part of the evening to triple check the hundred-and-sixty-eight crates containing every single brick, panel, column, roof tile and floorboard of the ancient Terran manor. Hers was not to reason why the Emperor wished to bring a complete house to the other side of the Milky Way, rather than build a new one. The Emperor wished it and so it would happen. She would make sure of it.

Kaptara resealed the last cargo box and checked its content off the master-list. Everything was accounted for. She stretched and suppressed a yawn. It had been a long day, but the first stage of the work was done. They were ready to start their journey. She put the master-list back in it’s flakboard folder and picked up her electro-lantern. It cast a weak, blue light in the darkened hall. It must be later than she’d anticipated. She glanced at her chronowatch. Its display read 11:13. A minute passed and a frown creased her brow. She tapped the display, shook it even, but it didn’t move past the indicated time. Kaptara sighed. Who knew how late it truly was? She should go home.

As she turned to leave, she saw movement from the corners of her eyes. Her head jerked up. She caught a glimpse of scalloped cloth as a figure passed through a beam of light and disappeared behind the tall crates containing the oaken colonnade. Dust flecks drifted in their wake. Kaptara scowled and her grip tightened on the handle of her electro-lantern. “Sir! Or madame! You are not allowed to be here!” she called out and set after the trespasser. She rounded the corner with a reprimand on her tongue but it died before leaving her lips. 

A dozen metres ahead, in the lengthening shadows of the cargo crates, stood the Emperor. The splendid silk of his saffron robes shimmered and the darkness around him seemed deeper for it. Without his customary gilded chestplate and eagle-shaped pauldrons he appeared slighter, and taller somehow. His regal, olive features  almost pale and gaunt in the hard, unflattering light of the electro-lantern. He lifted a polished obsidian stone with glittering veins into a cargo crate, yet despite his movement silence reigned in the deserted hall.

“Your Imperial Majesty!” Kaptara exclaimed in shocked tones, her voice jarring and loud.

“Taitale. We were wondering where you were.” He spoke softly and yet she heard it as if he were standing right beside her. He straightened with a swoosh of heavy cloth that send the shadows skittering across the marble floor. “Did we not instruct you to not forget a single piece.”

“Y-y- thousand apologies, your Imperial Majesty,” Kaptara replied, mortified.

“How will we meditate without the pool of reflections?” he observed as he turned to the part deconstructed well further down the hall.

Aghast, Kaptara noticed the Emperor’s fine robes had frayed at the edges, the expensive cloth threadbare and smudged brown. Though he went bare foot, his steps rang through the quiet hall now. He looked alarmingly dishevelled, as if he’d risen from slumber and come directly here. A slumber she had disturbed by forgetting this part of the ancient manor. She could not recall a well from the floor plans. A fountain, yes, but not a well. It did not matter. If the Emperor said there was a well, then there was a well and it needed to come. Thank the stars there had been a crate left to fit it in.

“Your Imperial Majesty, please, let me!” Kaptara exclaimed as she hurried to assist him, the distance to him further than she’d thought it to be. The Emperor let go of the stone he had been about to lift and observed her quietly, an imperious frown creasing his sharp features. Kaptara hastily sank through her knees and she grasped the stone. The polished surface was oddly warm to the touch. As she rose her gaze moved past the boundaries of the stone and into the depths of the well. The abyss below roared up at her like a living thing, its disembodied pulse thrumming in her ears. One breathless moment she saw the red-litten city, its twin suns reflected upon the cloudy depths of the bottomless lake in which the ancients lay.

He watched as the hapless craftsman stared into the void and rested his hand on the back of her neck. A light squeeze for a minute or two and his fading home would be an eternal inhabitant richer. Such wondrous things she might make him… But no, he needed the craftsman to reassemble the well, to turn the ordinary stones back into what they truly were.

“Taitale, come back,” he said and tugged the woman away from the precipice. “You cannot go yet, you have work to do.”

Kaptara looked up at the Emperor, her mind as clouded as lake Hali. “That place,” she managed. “Such works to be made for my King…”

“We promise you may go and add to its wonders,” he said and smiled behind his mask.

Kaptara frowned. Her mind clearing. “What place?” She looked at the well. It had been drained in preparation of the move. She could see the packed mosaic below with its yellow-stoned glyph, like a triad of question marks around a single point.

“The place of every piece of the mosaic,” he repeated with a reassuring smile. “It is imperative that not a single piece is misplaced or forgotten. The consequences would be… unpleasant.”

“Such a thing will not happen, your Imperial Majesty,” Kaptara replied as a sense of déjà vu came over her. “I will make sure of it.”

“We shall see.”

Kaptara looked down at the chiselled rock in her hands. Its queer, pale veins pulsed with promise. She strokes the smooth, warm stone, lost in thoughts of wondrous things. She carried it to the crate, but when she returned to the well the Emperor had left. Disappointment settled in her stomach but she chided herself. It was the dead of night and the Emperor had simply returned to bed now that her oversight had been rectified. It took her all night to meticulously catalogue and pack the intricate mosaic. She knew this because her chronowatch had started again.

                                               O           O          O

“Master Kaptara?”

Someone gently shook her shoulder. Her mind struggled from slumber as a diver might for air. Her eyes opened to miraculous green ones set in a kind brown face. It took her a moment to recognise the woman.

“Your Imperial Majesty, apologies, I—.” Viscous liquid slid from the corner of her mouth as she spoke. Embarrassed, Kaptara wiped it away.

Wing-Captain Arlette Amon Rakaposhi Gorro smiled and waved Kaptara her reply away. “No need, master Kaptara.” She held out a hand and helped her up. “Did my beloved Emperor make you work through the night?” she enquired as she looked her up and down.

“No, certainly not,” Kaptara assured the empress-consort. She swallowed and ran her tongue across the inside of her mouth, attempting to rid herself of the foul taste of fish lingering there. She saw that men and women she directed had started putting the crates on grav lifts. Good. The Emperor walked among them, inspecting a crate here and speaking to a craftsman there. The gold of His chestplate and pauldrons shone in the morning light flooding the hall, the embroidered crimson silk of His robes never folding out of place. Arlette her gaze followed Kaptara’s to Him. “He didn’t ask you to finish it or anything like it?” she frowned at Kaptara in a way that jogged a memory of her mother. She should visit her.

“No, your Imperial Majesty,” Kaptara repeated as memories of the disturbing night returned to her as incomprehensible shards. “No, I remembered a last section,” she patted the crate beside her for emphasis. “It’s all in here now.”

Arlette nodded, but her expression didn’t change. “You’ve outdone yourself, master Kaptara. Go home, Antiocha is surely worried.”

“Thank you, your Imperial Majesty.” Kaptara bowed neatly. Arlette watched her leave.

“You have something on your mind,” the Emperor observed as He stood beside her. Arlette didn’t so much as flinch.

“Maybe.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I feel anxious and I do not understand why.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and took her hand in His. “Not entirely surprising, we’re leaving our home.”

“Maybe,” she repeated, her tone uncertain. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“It will,” He said as He gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

“I think I will lay down for a bit,” she decided and stood up on her toes to give Him a kiss.

“That is a sound plan,” He agreed as she handed Him the master-list. His gaze lingered on her stomach as she strode away, guardian spear in hand. He shook His head and opened the flakboard folder to peruse it. One-hundred-and-sixty-nine cargo crates were listed. Thirteen times thirteen. If He were a superstitious man this would concern Him, but He was not and so it didn’t. He considered if Arlette had noticed. She was sensitive to these things.

The crate labelled CLXIX stood beside Him. It had been the last to be packed and the only one near her. On impulse, He opened it. A frown creased his brow as he peered inside. The veined stones in the crate were chipped and dull with age. He couldn’t recall from where they came, but then He hadn’t been in the manor house in a very long time. Likely, they belonged to some parlour or the other. He closed the crate and inspected the master-list. The last entry had been scrawled in a different pen in evident haste compared to the previous neat writing : ‘fragile, do NOT up turn.’ It would seem Kaptara had discovered a missing section and packed it herself. She was thorough. He dismissed it with a smile and closed the cargo crate, pleased He’d been right about the woman’s ability. They were all set to go to Imperia.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such it is very dear to me. I would love to hear what you thought of it. And please, share this story freely but credit me and link back to me. Thank you!


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